I won't let being deaf stop me becoming a TV star: Actress Genevieve Barr tells how she went from a hop-on part as a rabbit to landing the lead role in a chilling new BBC drama

I was bracing myself for one of the most humiliating things a girl my age can do in public while sober - a sexy dance. And not just any old sexy dance, but a sexy dance in front of 60 extras and 40 film crew I barely knew.

I was craving a gin and tonic to steady my nerves but since it was 11am and I was playing the lead role in a new four-part BBC1 drama, that wasn't an option.

My discomfiture cut no ice with director Dearbhla Walsh - she said I just had to suck it up.

Any 24-year-old inexperienced actress would find it challenging to writhe sensually to the beat in front of 100 strangers, but it was particularly difficult for me. I couldn't hear any music. I'm deaf.

High hopes: Genevieve Barr gave up a career in teaching to pursue her acting dream

It took a while for my parents to notice there was something wrong with me as a baby. Perhaps the first indication was when my mother sang nursery rhymes to me in the bath.

I would repeat bits back to her word by word, but without a sound coming out of my mouth.

Following a number of tests when I was two, I was diagnosed as severely deaf in both ears. Some parts of my ear do work, which means that hearing aids can amplify sound enough to give me a limited range of hearing.

Friends have described the sensation of wearing my hearing aids as like listening to a bad radio - there is a lot of static and muffled sounds - but I soon got used to discerning speech from background sound.

Initially, doctors told my parents that I would never be able to speak or go to a mainstream school, and that they would have to learn sign language as it would be my main way of communicating.

Mum and Dad looked at each other and said: 'We're not doing that.' They were determined to offer me a better life.

It was the best decision they ever made for me. Every stage of my childhood may have been an uphill battle, but my parents never gave up on their ambition to help me adapt to a hearing world that I too was a part of.

My mother did not work when I was young, which was a good thing considering the huge job she had on her hands. We played word games every day and she would speak into a balloon so I could feel, and thus learn, the vibrations of sound.

When I got hearing aids, I was able to not only hear those vibrations but begin to enunciate those sounds myself. Lip-reading and using hearings aids became normal. Dad was working full-time, but he too was incredibly supportive.

It was a huge landmark when, after several mainstream schools rejected me, I was accepted as a pupil at Belmont Birklands Preparatory School in Harrogate. Since then, I have been able to overcome most hurdles by myself.

As a teenager, one of my greatest passions was sport - aged 14 I played rounders for England, and I travelled all over the country for highboard diving competitions.

It did frustrate me when my lack of hearing was a barrier in my communication with team-mates. I had to make up for this by making the best possible use of my peripheral vision and by persevering, but I still I feared I would be underestimated.

Consequently, I always strived to exceed expectations to ensure I was accepted like anyone else.

Where my deafness did prove a drawback was in drama. I loved acting and my teacher would always thrust me forward for big roles in the school play, but it was pride before a fall every time.

My confidence was shattered by a humiliating rejection every year - made worse by the fact that the cast would always be announced in assembly. I would clap my friends, happy for them, but find the lump in my throat difficult to swallow when I was passed over yet again.

A non-speaking rabbit in Wind In The Willows represented the high-point of my school drama career.

I blamed my deafness, believing my speaking was not clear enough. But there was also a niggling doubt that I simply was not good enough.

While several of my friends went to drama school, I went to university to study English literature and history. As time passed, so my passion for acting faded.

After university, I took a place on the Teach First graduate scheme, which aims to bring exceptional graduates into 'challenging' secondary schools.

My first year was spent at a tough school in Bermondsey, South-East London. Having undertaken barely six weeks training, I felt like I was throwing myself into a pool of sharks.

My deafness was the obvious thing for the pupils to pick on - they would swear while turned away from me and rap on the undersides of their desks. I could hear all of this but my hearing aids do not give a direction of sound, so I could not identify the culprits.

However, most of the children were great and I survived the year, tougher for having done it.

I was luxuriating in the first day of the summer holidays in 2009 when I received a text from a university friend. A production company he worked for was looking for a deaf actress for a pilot sitcom called The Amazing Dermot. Would I be interested?

Hesitantly I said yes, but by the time of the audition, I was regretting the whole thing - acting wasn't my forte. So imagine my surprise when I received a call three days later to say I'd got the part.

Ridiculous though it sounds, as well as feeling jubilation, my heart also sank. I had to stop torturing myself with this ridiculous dream of acting. It's a tough career even for the most accomplished of hearing actors, so how much more difficult was it going to be for a deaf girl with little more than 'non-speaking rabbit' on her CV?

The teaching was going well. I should stick with that - a 'proper job', as people kept reminding me.

After filming The Amazing Dermot, I said my goodbyes to acting for the second time - or so I thought. A few days later, I received an email from a casting director. The subject heading was 'The Silence - BBC Drama'.

My heart skipped a beat. It was a big role - 18-year-old Amelia Edwards has recently been fitted with a cochlear implant, enabling her to hear (this meant I would have to ditch my hearing aids if I got the part), but she is in conflict with her over-protective parents.

While staying with her aunt and uncle, she witnesses the murder of a policewoman.

It is both a thriller and a powerful family drama. I recognised so much of myself in Amelia, especially her stubbornness and her struggle with a world that is confusing to her. Again, against all my expectations, I got the part.

My first scene with my screen mother, Gina McKee, involved us having a fierce argument during which she slaps me around the face. And we did 15 takes. Ouch. By the end of the day I felt as if I'd been through an emotional wringer - dealing with unruly pupils was a doddle in comparison.

For the first week of filming, I was still plagued by self-doubt, the feeling that I was a fraud about to be 'found out'. Then came the scene in which I had to cry.

I dredged up my most depressing memories, and during rehearsals I was able to burst into fits of tears. Yet when I came to do the scene for real, it was as if something clicked and I found myself thinking about Amelia and the fact she had just witnessed a murder.

As I recounted the killing to my screen uncle, played by Douglas Henshall, the tears came naturally. From then on, I really started to believe in my ability as an actress. I said to myself: 'This time, you're not letting go.'

Now I face the challenge that every actor faces - of getting more work. Obviously, being deaf helps when it comes to playing deaf, but what about a hearing role?

I'm working hard with a voice coach on my speech to reduce the harshness of my hard consonants and to avoid the temptation to over-pronounce my words.

The determination I have to pursue an acting career gives me the courage to work on my voice. Being deaf is such a small part of who I am, I will not allow it to dictate every part I play.

But that's for the future. My hope for now is that viewers will enjoy The Silence and think: 'Genevieve Barr, she's a pretty good actress,' without adding: '. . . for a deaf girl'.

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I won't let being deaf stop me becoming a TV star: Actress Genevieve Barr tells how she went from a hop-on part as a rabbit to landing the lead role in a chilling new BBC drama